[Christer Bergström]

I have been asked where Yuriy Rybin and I have found the material for such a large biography as our on Walter Schuck. First of all, we have exhausted all there is on Schuck and his comrades in official German archives. However, most of the original documents on JG 5 indeed were destroyed during or at the end of the war, and some were captured by the Soviets or the Norwegians. Nevertheless, some documents have cropped up in private archives and collections in recent years, and there is a wealth of information in Russian archives which can be used to reconstruct several air combats - even from the German point of view - in detail with utmost historical accuracy.

The following excerpt is an example of how we have been able to combine some German material with Russian archive material to reconstruct an air combat authentically:

In the afternoon, Schuck participated when twenty-one Me 109s and Fw 190s took off to attack the Soviet ships. The Germans split into three formations - consisting of four respectively eight and nine aircraft - which in intervals attacked the ships from different directions. Schuck and four other Me 109 pilots escorted four Fw 190s. While the Focke Wulfs dived against the ships, scoring hits on all of them, Schuck and the Messerschmitt pilots attacked the four Soviet Hurricanes which were on patrol over the boats. These were from 78 IAP/VVS SF. The Soviet formation leader, Mladshiy Leytenant Valeriy Kiritshenko, was quite experienced. This was his 86th combat flight, and he knew that his four old Hurricanes stood little chance against a superior number of Me 109 Gs. He ordered his men into a Lufbery Circle, although that would not either provide the Soviets with much protection.
Knowing exactly how to engage the Soviets in this manoeuvre, Schuck pulled in behind the leading Hurricane. A brief correction of the turning angle, and then he opened fire. The clock on the dashboard in Schuck’s aircraft showed 1616 hours when his [Xth] victory was registered. While the wounded Kiritshenko brought his crippled Hurricane down to a belly-landing on the shore of the Rybachiy Peninsula, Schuck pulled up before his next attack. By shooting down the leading Hurricane, Schuck had broken the Lufbery circle, and the three remaining Hurricanes flew uncoordinatedly in different directions. At 1622 hours, Schuck’s next victim went down.
Again, Schuck decided to gain altitude before his third attack. He pulled the stick and climbed into the thick layer of clouds slightly above. Exactly in that moment, Soviet reinforcement arrived - in the shape of three Hurricanes from 27 IAP/VVS SF. Leading these aircraft was Mladshiy Leytenant Magomet Ikhayev. Like Kiritshenko, he was a quite experienced pilot. Ikhayev had been in action since 1941, and this was his 51st combat mission. But the mistake he made was to try to pursue Schuck’s climbing Messerschmitt into the coulds. Maybe the excitement caused Ikhayev to forget the German tactic of always keeping a Rotte or Schwarm as top cover. As Ikhayev’s Hurricane emerged above the cloud, Major Günther Scholz’s Messerschmitt 109 dived down on him, shooting his Hurricane to pieces.
When Schuck dived down for the third time, he could see no trace of any enemy aircraft. In fact, Ikhayev’s two wingmen had disappeared into the clouds, and the four-plane formation from 78 IAP was completely obliterated. Oberleutnant Horst Berger and Leutnant Hans-Bodo Diepen shot down the last two 78 IAP Hurricanes.